In the Arms of an Angel
by Gagegirl06
Summary: John and the rest of the guys at the station, learn about the greatest love and power of all......and sorry for a line at the end of this story. computer malfunction put a line in the wrong place.


_**In the Arms of an Angel **_

Johnnie sat on the hood of the squad, rolling his penlight casually between his fingers. He could still see her face fresh in his mind. So sweet, and so innocent. He could feel his partner Roy staring down on him from behind. Roy's face was drenched with tears and sweat. He rubbed the bridge of his nose as he walked over to John and leaned his back up against the squad; his face, facing away from Johnnie…..

"We…..we ugh… lost her too Johnnie…" was all that Roy managed to whisper out. John let a tear slide down his cheek as he breathed in roughly through his flared nostrils and clenched his teeth, just waiting for the tears to stream even harder and faster down.

From inside the ambulance entrance doors, doctor Kelly Bracket and nurse Dixie McCall watched their two finest paramedics break down and slam fists into the squad compartments, releasing their frustration and pent up sadness inside.

"It's just not fair Kell…" was all Dix said and Kelly just nodded and walked away from the scene with her.

News reporters flashed all over the hospital, waiting for a statement from the doctor.

"We're on live in five minutes doctor Brackett!" a cameraman yelled from down the hall.

Police chief Ralph Henderson stood beside Brackett, waiting for the questions to start and for the cameras to start flashing.

"Just take it easy Kel!" he said "Most of the questions will be directed towards me anyhow!" and with that… it began..

" Police Chief Henderson…. Can you tell us exactly what went wrong this morning, how did this happen? And how many casualties are we talking about?" The first reporter shoved his way through and pounded the questions

The police chief rose his hand to quiet the crowd, and cleared his throat in an effort to speak.

"We had a call into the station from Bryersville Middle School this morning. At approximately eight o'clock today, a young thirteen year old boy brought a gun into school, he shot several of his teachers and classmates, then killed himself……. There were nine victims…. Two teachers, the rest children…." The chiefs emotions took play and he found himself unable to speak any longer…

"What happened then?" …. "Who survived?" … "Who was the boy? .. Why did the boy do it?" reporters kept nagging….

Finally doctor Brackett stepped forward.

"I'm doctor Brackett with Rampart Emergency, I'm sorry to tell you all that there were no survivors of this mornings attack…… thank you.. and that will be all" Brackett threw a hand up in defense against the persistant reporters and shut the door of his office to be alone.

Back at the station everyone had been watching the news on t.v. Cap had told them all to be considerate and to leave Gage and Desoto alone when they got back.

Just then, the squad backed into its quarters and a down hearted Gage and Desoto exited and went straight for the bunk rooms to clean up and change.

Roy just turned the water faucet on and let it run while just staring at his face in the mirror….

"kids….. just kids…." He whispered defensively to himself.

Johnny had changed, and not saying a word, went out to his land rover in the parking lot out back.

He opened the silver door to the back seat and frantically began throwing dirty shirts, plastic bags, and old soda bottles, in a search for something.

Some of the guys back inside, including Roy, just stood and watched, everyone curious as to what he was looking for.

He finally stood up and scratched his head as he gently shook it, but then peering one last time into the car before shutting the door, a half a smile cracked his face and his hands dove for the object which he had been searching for.

Pulling his hands back out, in them was now a dirty black book. John took his shirt sleeve and wiped it off, then blew the little bits of dust off of the corner, and entered back into the station.

"Hey what cha got there Johnnie?" Chet asked being his nosey self

"Gentlemen, what I hold here is the answer." John was actually serous in saying this, and just patted his book and headed for the bunkroom to read.

"Hey Roy, I think you better talk to John… I think he mighta gotten a screw knocked loose if ya know what I mean!" Chet persisted

"Yea… I guess we all got our screws knocked a little off this morning though…. But I'll go talk to him…. Might do him some good." Roy just rolled his eyes toward his shoes and began his descent into the bunk room.

He found John propped up on one side, laying across his bed, casually, but hastily, licking and turning, licking and turning, each page in the book.

"May I ask what it is you're looking for John?" Roy decided to slip in between licks.

"Yea… you know the last little girl we brought in…?"

"Yea, the ugh, the … the Stacey girl right?"

"Yea that's the one. You know Roy, she was the only we pulled out today that was still conscious when I was treating her….. she wasn't even scared Roy…. She just looked at me and tears… they fell down….. then she reached up and grabbed my hand and told me it would be okay, because she stood up for Jesus."

"I don't understand partner.." Roy wrinkled his eyebrows in confusion

"Yea, neither did I , so I asked her…….. I can still remember her telling me…..she told me that the kid with the gun hated Christians…. He was going around through the classrooms, asking the students and the teachers, whether or not they believed in Jesus… if they said no, then he left them alone…. If they said yes though, he shot them……."

Johnny was still and quiet for a moment, as the memories from the morning flooded through him.

"You okay John?" Roy asked with concern for his younger partner as he saw a tear fall down Johnnies cheek.

"Yea… just taking a minute. … so I guess she tells me that she's a Christian, that she couldn't have imagined life without Jesus in it, .. how God gave her hope, and joy, and peace, even in times of trial…. Even right then as she lay dying in my arms. She asked me if I believed in God….. I didn't really know what to say to her…. I could tell that she could see the hurt and confusion in my eyes though….. I told her that I'd heard of Him… but really wasn't sure or not, whether I believed….. she told me that was close enough… and she asked me to pray with her. Roy, I'd never felt such a movement in my whole body as I did in that moment, I felt something there that didn't exist before….. and then her heart monitor started to go off…. She was beginning to go into cardiac arrest, I made an attempt to jump up and get on the horn to Rampart but her hand clenched mine and jerked me back…. She smiled at me and said it was okay…. Said it was her time…. And with her last breathe…. It really was her dying breathe… she barely whispered what sounded like Exodus… and then she said two numbers… she said fifteen and two.. if I can remember right. …. She went unconscious and her grip let go of me… I eventually ended up shocking her back, and that's when I sent her away to the hospital with you…."

Roy stood in thought for a moment, as did John. He looked down and saw that John was holding an old dirty bible, that had been cracked and faded by the years. And smudged by trash in the back of John's land rover.

"So you think she wanted you to read a verse… is that it?" Roy questioned his young partner.

"Yea.. I do." He finally replied " I knew Exodus was a book of the bible, so I figured the fifteen was the chapter, and the two was the verse.."

"So what does it say?" Roy questioned almost impatiently

"Well… I actually just found it.." John cleared his throat. "It says…. 'The Lord gives me strength. I sing about Him. He has saved me. He is my God. I will praise Him.'…. that's about it I guess…"

"So what now?" Roy asked

"So, I'm gonna find out what it means to be a Christian now, that's what…... If that girl believed in a love so much, that she was willing to die for it, then I say this love must be real, and I'm going to find it, and live the rest of my life with the same love." John smiled to himself at the thought and continued reading on in the old bible as Roy just stood there watching the expressions on his partners face.

Just as Roy opened his mouth to speak, the tones went off in the station and all the men ran for the bay.

"Station 51, station 110, truck 17, squad 8, battalion 4, structure fire North Welmingham street, time out 10:25"

"Station 51, 10-4, KMG 365" Stanley quickly scribbled the address onto the paper and ran for his seat on the engine.

_**About 10 minutes later**_

The engine and the squad came to a hault in front of the blazing building. Other engines had arrived as well and their captains were spurting out orders as everyone donned their SCBA tanks and ran in with the hoses.

"So what have we got Cap?" Roy asked from behind his mask

"Security guard says he's pretty sure that everyone got out. It's just a warehouse with a catwalk to a couple of upstairs offices. Why don't you and John go ahead and do a quick sweep though, just to clear my conscious and make sure we have no victims burning up with this thing." Captain Stanley turned as John and Roy began to leave "O… And Roy!" he yelled out " Roy make sure you take the handy-talkie with you, we've got some tanks in there that might go, and I want to able to contact you two if there's a need to get outa there!"

"Right Cap! Thanks" Roy grabbed the HT and headed into the smoke after Johnny.

"Man, this fire sure is hot!" Johnny remarked to his partner

"Yea, I know what you mean… even if somebody was in here, I doubt they would still be alive." Roy replied

John and Roy ran around the downstairs, knocking through boxes and calling for anybody that may be there, and keeping an eagle eye out for any signs of a victim.

Just then Roy and John heard a scream, and they ran the corner to see what happened. As they rounded the other side of the boxes they saw some of station 110 around one of their own.

"What happened?" Roy called as he and Johnny ran to their side

"A box from up top came down on him… knocked him good in the head. I think he's out cold" Answered one of the firefighters.

"Okay… we need ta get him outside so I can take a look at him." Roy said helping the men pick him up " Hey John… I think I can handle this guy alone, why don't you go and check the upstairs real quick and then meet me out at the squad!"

"Okay partner! Sounds good." John turned and ran back into the blaze

Flames licked just inches away from him as he ran up the metal stairs. The stairs didn't reach too high into the air. Probably around 25 to 30 feet is what he could tell by looking at it.

Only two offices were up there. John quickly went down to the one furthest away from him, and kicked the door in. The office was small and full of smoke. He could tell right away that no-one was there, so he left to check the last one.

Meanwhile, back outside, the firefighters ran with haste out of the building. All of the Captains were yelling into their HT's for the men to get out of there, it was going to blow!

Roy looked up from his patient, and then back down and realized that the handy-talkie him and Johnnie had been using was with him. He quickly ran over to Stanley, seeing as how his partner had not yet exited the building.

"Hey Cap! Johns in there, and he doesn't have an HT!"

Captain Stanley quickly yelled at Chet and Marco to run back in, but just as they came to the double door entrance, a blast shook the whole earth beneath everyone.

Marco and Chet went flying back, as the ground gave way beneath their feet and a fiery blast from inside knocked them down.

Other than some scrapes, they both got back up onto their feet in time to grab a hose and join all of the other men in running back into the blaze to tackle the flames.

John had looked down from the catwalk to see the last man from inside, running full force out of the front door. His heart leaped up in his throat as he knew the place was about to go. He ran as fast as he could for the stairs, but just as he barely reached the top of them, the blast had gone off, and sent the whole second floor of the warehouse into a collapse.

He felt the heat of the fire, the cracking metal of the catwalk and the offices as they crashed down. He felt the thud of the concrete earth, 25ft below him, as he came to a stop and crashed.

Metal stairs, and chunks of drywall flung down ontop of him. He could feel the bones breaking, knew the pain was coming, and saw the blood flowing as the dust and ashes rose around him.

Every fireman could see the debris piled up underneath where the second floor had been. And as they finished dousing out the last of the flames, they all ran in an effort to uncover and retrieve their fallen comrade.

John had not been completely buried, and was spotted almost instantly by Chet. The other men quickly flung the dry wall and stairs off of their friend, and rolled him over onto a backboard to quickly get him out of the building which could continue falling apart, and was very unstable.

Roy was waiting with Rampart already on the line. He saw the limp body of his junior partner coming closer. Roy swallowed the lump in his throat as they set John down on the ground, and he looked at his poor unfortunate friend in his suffering.

"It's gonna be okay junior.." Roy said, almost choking on tears, and then quickly began his work, with all of the other men eagerly standing around.

_**2 hours later**_

The rest of station 51 had finished at the scene of the fire, and were now bursting through the doors of Rampart General Hospital. They quickly spotted Roy sitting with his head in his hands over in the waiting area.

Captain Stanley led the men, and went over and placed a hand on Roy's shoulder, causing him to look up.

"Hey guys…." Roy managed to get out

"So how is he?" Cap asked with understanding in his eyes if Roy couldn't answer.

Roy took a minute.

"Not good…… they just took him up to surgery. And Brackett told me, he doubts if John will make it through." Roy just stared down at his hands, not knowing what to do with them, just placed his head in them, and let some needed tears fall silently out.

Cap squeezed his shoulder tightly as he saw the man losing his composure. Dixie was standing at the nurse's station watching them, and she walked down the hall, and offered that they come into the break room where they could wait in a little more private setting.

All of the men accepted and made themselves at home on the couch, and with cups of coffee in their hands.

Every minute that passed by seemed like an eternity to them all, when doctor Brackett finally walked in the door, removing his surgery cap and mask, and rubbing his sore hands.

"So how is he…?" Roy asked, almost not wanting to.

Brackett grinded the side of his right hand into the palm of his left, looking at the floor momentarily, and then up to Roy and the rest of the men.

"He made it through the surgery alive………. But even after we did all that we could…… I'm not expecting him to live past the next half hour."

Brackett didn't know how else to put it them, except for the honest truth. He saw the deep eyes of pain, now visible on every face in the room, including his own. He tried to find something within himself that he could say or offer to these men, something they could do for their friend, but nothing came to him, and they all just stood there in silence.

The door to the lounge slammed open and Dixie rushed in, just as the call came over the intercom… "Doctor Brackett, code blue! Room 33"

"It's Johnnie!" Was all Brackett said as he ran alongside Dix out of the door and down the hall.

"So this is it?" Chet began to speak "We just lost our friend." His eyes turned sad and angry mixed together. He didn't know how to feel. The phantom was losing his victim… his best friend.

"No!" Roy stood and contradicted Chet's statement. "No! This is not it! We are not going to lose him! Not here, and not now!" He flared in a rage of tears

Captain Stanley rose to his senior paramedic and grabbed him by the shoulders.

"Everyone has done all that they could Roy, there's nothing any of us can do now. It's all going to be over soon." Cap spoke to Roy

"No…. you're wrong Cap, there is something. There is something that none of us have tried to do, and probably something that none of us have ever even done, but it's time to. And from knowing Johnny these past couple of days, it's what he would want from us."

Everyone watched in wonder and silence as Roy began a slow descent to his knees. At first Cap thought that he was fainting, but then realized that this man had all of his composure within him.

The tears bitter taste and wetness stung the corners of his mouth, and his face. He slowly raised his eyes toward heaven and lifted his hands upward, by his side, and he began to pray.

He had never done this before, but he needed no instructions, he was talking to his creator, and he let the concerns and the depths of his heart flow from his mouth into the ear of God.

And what was even more amazing in that moment, was that every man from station 51, with blood shot and tear filled eyes, dropped slowly to the ground and did the exact same thing.

About five minutes had passed when Dixie walked into the room. None of the men moved, however, they stayed down, raising their prayers to God.

Dixie just began to cry even harder and tried to wipe flow after flow pouring down her cheek. Brackett walked in behind her. Amazement shocked on his face, without a tear however.

"Did you tell em Dix?" Brackett asked, but saw she was consumed by her tears and the mystery of the situation.

Roy stood up and looked at Brackett.

"He's alive Roy….. we thought we lost him, but somehow within those past five minutes, his heart came back even stronger than it was before. His bleeding stopped, and he woke up…….I can't explain it…. I'm so baffled myself over what happened…. I don't know what to say, except somebody was watching over him" Brackett smiled and left the room.

Roy backed up and sat down onto the couch and just stared into space.

"It really worked…" He barely whispered to himself "God hears his people cry, and he answers them.." And a small tear of joy rolled out of his eye. "Thank you Lord! Thank You!"

Dixie came and tapped Roy on the leg, motioning for him to follow her. As soon as Johnnie had woken up, he had asked for Roy.

Roy slowly opened the door to room 33. He saw John laying in the moonlight coming through his window, with I.V tubes and EKG wires hooked up and running to, and through him.

"Hey partner…"Roy said, still standing in awe of the miracle "How are ya?"

"Great Roy…." Johnnie whispered through a raspy voice, due to some smoke inhalation from the fire. "Thanks." He said with a smile.

"Were you scared at all?" Roy asked in the stillness of the room.

It was quiet for a only a moment and then John replied….. "Nah… I wasn't scared. I prayed in the building while I was falling, and for a moment after I hit the ground. I could feel God holding onto me, wrapping his love around me, and placing me in the arms of His angels. He told me everything was going to be alright. I could feel myself in their arms the whole time. He told me that I would be okay. He told me that you guys were gonna be there for me when I needed you….." Johnny just stopped there and looked into his best friends eyes.

"We were partner. And you were right…. He is the answer!" Roy squeezed Johns hand and the two just sat there, thinking about how wonderful this love and this life was, that the Lord had finally revealed Himself to them.

THE END!

I know… this story was probably a little different from most emergency stories. But I felt compelled to write it, and that it had good truth behind it. Hope that you enjoyed it! Thanks for reading, and God bless!

haste out of the building. All of the Captains were yelling into their HT"was


End file.
